Lemonade
by Kazzy
Summary: Jaina and Zekk find old memories are all too easy to stir up. JZ. For the Lemonade challenge in First Love, Last Love at tf.n


**Category – **Angst, J/Z**  
Keywords – **Jaina, Zekk, Jacen, Lemonade

Summary – Jaina and Zekk find old memories are all too easy to stir up. 

**Disclaimer – **As much as I would like to claim ownership of Zekk (I could hide him under my bed), _Star_ _Wars_, and all associated themes and characters do not belong to me.

**Notes – **Written for the Lemonade Challenge. Please R&R!

**The Lemonade Challenge!**

Write a songfic to the song "Lemonade" by Emerson Drive.

Must include the following:

- Jaina & Zekk  
- Lemonade   
- Pictures  
- A beach.  
- And the line: "Look at us in that photograph, so beautifully naïve... I want it back"  
- At least one use of the chorus (if not all), and most of the song lyrics (Due to ff.n's policy about song lyrics, I chopped all but the first verse out. Full version at tf.n)

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

_Called in sick to the coffee shop  
Said let's go someplace the weather is hot  
Bought two plane tickets and called a yellow cab  
Drank all our money at beachside bars  
Took pictures of each other smokin' cheap cigars  
Stole a blanket from the hotel room and slept on the sand  
We held the world like a glass of lemonade  
It tasted sweet  
Oh, man we had it made_

With the Jedi community as small as it was, it was hardly as though they could avoid each other forever. Sooner or later they would have ended up in the same place at the same time. Actually, the only astonishing thing was that it had taken nearly seven years for that eventuality to occur. The Force moved in mysterious ways.

Jaina only questioned why it had to be now. _Now_ of all times.

Why couldn't have been a year ago when she was still in a – admittedly rocky – relationship? A relationship that had at least pretended to be one that made the gossip columns ooh and ahh? Then she would have been able to show she had some semblance of something over him. Jag had been good like that. More than a little possessive when it came to her spending time with other men, and slightly on the jealous side, she could glide along on Jag's arm – whether he was there or not – and know that seeing old boyfriends wouldn't matter. No matter how good the memories were.

A year ago, she would have had a shield against _him_ and their past, in the form of a very good-looking Chiss pilot. Now though, it only took a glimpse through the crowd of family, friends, various assorted Jedi, politicians, and anyone else who had managed to garner an invitation – the Jedi were very fashionable at the moment – and she was thrown back to the past. The very happy, carefree pre-war past. Pre-war, pre-Jag.

Where was that _pilot_ again? Oh yeah, sleeping with that brainless, blond whatshername, with absolutely no talent in either the Force or the cockpit – no double entendre intended. But Jaina supposed that must be where he was, because certainly Jag would have received an invitation for tonight, he had that much pull. On second thoughts, Jaina took the time reinforce her relief he wasn't here. Both of Zekk and Jag in the same room would only be bearable if she were dating one of them. Then she could pretend the other didn't exist. She didn't take the time to wonder which would fill which roll – she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Jaina was quite impressed at how well she had managed to avoid Zekk all evening. The gathering was big, but not that big. Still Jacen had his uses sometimes, even if he did try to convince her that his confusing, and sometimes downright absurd philosophies were how she should be living her life.

Jaina didn't know about that, she tended to live her life from one day to the next, as she generally found that worked best. The only thing that could disrupt her rather happy world-view was the reappearance of her ex-sort-of-boyfriend. But she was doing her best to ignore him, so she wasn't thinking about that. Jaina was a Solo, and a Skywalker for that matter, she could ignore the lightsabre thrust through her heart if she chose to, despite the agonising pain. Stubbornness was helpful like that.

So, Jacen.

Actually she'd had enjoyed spending the last two days with her brother. It had been a couple of months since they'd seen each other, longer since they'd seen each other properly. It was simply nice to be able to talk to him again, or feel the desire to hit him over the head – she sort of forgot that urge when it had been too long since she'd seen him.

They'd spent the last few days catching up, complaining about being single, and creeping through the streets after midnight getting into trouble. Well, all right, so it had been Jaina, drunk, who had run through the streets after midnight getting into trouble. Jacen had spent most of that time chasing her down, trying to prevent anything more serious from happening. It had been almost like old times.

Old times. Getting into trouble after dark. Dammit. There she went with the Zekk references again. All it took was one simple glimpse. It hadn't even been that really. More like a flash…and the sure knowledge that he was around her somewhere waiting to be bumped into, so they could have an awkward conversation where they didn't meet each other's eyes, gave their apologies, and moved off.

Jaina kept telling herself that was the reason she didn't want to talk to Zekk. It would be uncomfortable. She wasn't going to listen to the part of her who would give up her soul just for a few seconds in his presence. No. No way.

-x-x-x-

Jacen had asked Danni to dance with a slightly desperate look on his face, and the pretty scientist had thrown a disturbed glance Jaina's way, so she left them in peace. It wasn't like Jacen was just going to leave.

A quick glance around the room showed Zekk was nowhere in sight. Maybe he'd disappeared with one of the brand new clingers-on that seemed to be everywhere at the moment. When she was with Jag, she hadn't noticed it, but now she couldn't turn around without someone hitting on her. She was beginning to suspect she was the only single woman in the galaxy. Putting on her best 'bother me and I'll run you through' expression, Jaina ploughed through the crowds to the refreshment table.

When she reached for a cup, her bumped into someone also reaching for that cup. She glanced up to apologise to the other person, only to have the apology die in her throat. The person who the hand belonged to was wearing a horrified expression that was probably mirrored on her own face. For the first time, she wondered if he might have been avoiding her as much as she'd been avoiding him.

"Jaina," he said sounding slightly strangled. Jaina couldn't feel him through the Force clearly, she could only assume he keeping a close lid on his emotions.

"Zekk," she replied, her own voice sounding as if it had been pushed through her throat. "You look well."

"Uh, thanks," he didn't return the favour, but then he'd never really been a liar. "Lemonade?" he asked in what appeared to be a futile attempt to fill the very awkward silence.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced and looked down. Jaina wondered if he cursing his own stupidity. She was. Cursing him. For his stupidity. Heat crept into her face, and Jaina took a second to curse herself. It had been a long time ago, and she was an adult now. An adult capable – occasionally – of doing adult things. Blushing like a silly teenager should have been off the agenda a long time ago.

However, it remained that the last time that Jaina – and probably Zekk – had had lemonade was the first, and only, time they'd shared a kiss. Jaina could remember how she'd been able to taste it on his lips, and how soft and warm those lips had been. This was not what she needed to remember right now.

To distract herself, Jaina looked for Jacen, only to see him escaping out a side door, the traitor. Danni was nowhere to be seen. Desperately, she looked around the room. Her mother and father were dancing, as were her aunt and uncle, and the few other people she could possibly come up with an excuse to go and see. No one seemed to be around that she could talk to, but Jaina knew she had to get out.

"Jaina?" she was momentarily interrupted from her overwhelming desire to flee by Zekk. He was offering her a cup of lemonade, doing his valiant best to pretend nothing was wrong. His green eyes were entreating her to do the same. She remembered that look only to well, and it unsettled her even more.

She spared another thought to wish she and Jag were still together. Not only would he have been a good pretext to disappear, but he would have been good at distracting as well. Jaina had the feeling that distraction was going to be vital after tonight.

"Uh, no thanks," she said. "I, uh, have to go." Then she turned and barged straight through Tahiri and Alema Ra, who had spotted their friends and come over to catch up. Frankly, Jaina didn't care. Both were women that she considered friends and both were people she would normally have stopped to talk to, but she was beginning to get the feeling that even that wouldn't save her now. She just needed to escape.

It hurt to look back at that Jaina – the one who had kissed Zekk eons ago – because she'd been so happy. Not that the current Jaina was particularly unhappy, but she lacked the almost delirious cheerfulness, which had only be slightly tainted by Dark Jedi and xenophobic aliens who wanted to poison everyone.

Closing the door to her apartment, Jaina was relieved to find the couch empty. Jacen obviously hadn't returned from wherever he'd been disappearing to with Danni. Collapsing on the same couch, Jaina pulled the blanket Jacen had been using around her, resisting the urge to hide her head under it and hope the galaxy went away.

Force-dammit, she missed him.

-x-x-x-

Zekk left the party almost straight after Jaina. He'd spent a few idle moments talking to Tahiri and Alema before coming up with some excuse. Seeing Jaina had reminded him of everything that'd once been good in his life. Watching her run away from him had been like a shock of icy water, reminding him of everything he had lost.

Finally, after two exceptionally long minutes, he'd thrown back the last of his lemonade, wishing someone had done him the courtesy of spiking it with something illegal, and left. He didn't notice the two women share a glance and shake their heads in disgust at their friends' behaviour. Both Jaina and Zekk were hopelessly stupid.

Back in his apartment Zekk poured himself a brandy, and downed it to take away the taste of lemonade. The sharp sweetness reminded him too much of the only time he'd ever summoned up the courage to kiss Jaina Solo. It reminded him of how one little kiss had been the best of his life, before and since.

He poured another to drink more slowly, and collapsed on the couch, wishing he could crawl under it and hope the galaxy went away. Jaina was probably unaware that they'd been living in the same city for just under a year. Both of them had been busy, rarely on the planet at the same time, and the few times Zekk had avoided her.

Oh, he'd watched her carefully, as he always had, but had made sure not to actually come into contact with her. At the Jedi Academy once, long ago, he'd nearly killed her, and since then he'd known he'd owe her a debt to make sure she was safe. That was a promise he'd made to himself, one he wasn't always able to keep, but one that kept him close, just not necessarily in line of sight.

Zekk was aware of when she'd broken up with Jag – the name Solo was well known enough that news like that travelled through the media faster than the gossip of friends. However, through the gossip he'd heard rumours that rather than being the sudden event it was being portrayed as, it was really just a slow fraying finally coming completely lose.

She'd moved back on world, presumably because that's where her parents were living. She hadn't known that Zekk called the same planet home.

At the time, Zekk had been seeing someone. The relationship had been serious, enough so that she'd been hinting at marriage. However, he'd accidentally caught a glimpse of Jaina one day, walking down the street with her father, laughing at something Han had said. That had been all it took. Within the week his relationship was over, and his furious girlfriend had smashed all the crockery in his apartment to tiny pieces.

Zekk didn't really want to be with Jaina. Mutually, they'd caused each other so much agony that he wasn't sure straightening it out would be worth the effort it would cause any relationship they might have. But the memory of how happy he'd been, when they were younger, had so completely eclipsed the relationship he'd been trying to have that in the end it had been kinder to just say goodbye.

In his closet, under a pair of broken boots, a torn shirt and three odd socks, was a box. Zekk, well into his third brandy, pulled it out, and sat on the couch looking at it. The box was plain, the kind that came with the pair of broken boots that had been sitting on top. He lifted the lid and pulled out the contents.

There wasn't much in it. A small hydrospanner that had been a gift from Jaina on his birthday, not long after they met. He'd mentioned what day it was once in passing a few weeks earlier, because she'd asked, and hadn't expected anything to be made of it. Jaina had other ideas, and for the first time since his parents' death he had felt as though he was important to someone.

A couple of letters they'd exchanged through their teens was under the hydrospanner. Some from when he'd been a bounty hunter, others from later on, if they were separated for any length of time. They stopped once the war had begun, both of them with too much on their minds. He could remember sending her one last one just after Chewbacca had died, for whatever reason she had never answered. He couldn't blame her for that, but it did make him feel that much more lonely.

Under everything there was a couple of pictures, he looked at the first one, and then wished he hadn't. Of all coincidences it was of the night they had shared that kiss. A little earlier in the evening, on Yavin IV, they'd been out by the river with their friends, laughing and fooling around. Jaina and Zekk had managed to conspire to push Jacen in, and then turned to be captured on camera by Raynar, before being Force pushed into the water by Tahiri and Anakin. Here they were both laughing, arms slung over each other's shoulders, and Jaina was looking up at him with an expression that now made his heart break. There was too much there that could have been.

Zekk sat there for a long time staring at the picture and wishing he was eighteen again.

-x-x-x-

Jacen found Jaina in her apartment on the couch, asleep under the blanket he'd been using. In her hands, she clutched an old picture from their days at the academy. Jacen remembered that night. This picture had been taken right after they'd pushed him in the river. For some reason, he could remember Jaina being almost ridiculously happy; she hadn't even tried to get revenge on Anakin and Tahiri for pushing her into the water, much anyway.

He shook her gently. "Jaya? Jaya wake up."

His sister opened her bleary eyes and looked at him for maybe a full second before glaring at him. Oh that's right, he'd been avoiding coming back tonight. After running out on her, at the party like that he had thought it might be best to leave any confrontations for a while. Give her a chance to stop seeing red.

He'd enjoyed catching up with Jaina, but she'd been a little clingy since he'd come back to see her – the first time he'd seen her properly since she'd left Jag. His mother suggested it was loneliness, after all Jaina had been involved with Jag for the better part of ten years; it would take her a good while to adjust to being alone.

"You left me," she accused, a hiss of anger in her tone. Like that. Even nearly a year later, Jaina seemed less inclined to want to be on her own. Of course this performance might have something to do with the fact that he'd left her with Zekk. Judging by the picture in her hands, and the others on the caf table, she'd been more affected by the other Jedi than she would have expected.

"Sorry, Jay, but you know I don't like those big party things. Danni and I thought we might get some air, and well you know, just didn't want to go back." Jaina was distracted enough that she didn't pick up on what he might not be saying and Jacen was grateful for that.

"Oh, because you thought I was going to enjoy myself then?" she asked sharply, and Jacen knew by painful experience that not saying anything in response would be best here.

Instead, he tried for a trickier route, a change of subject matter. Jacen nodded at the picture in her hands. "So, you spoke to Zekk tonight?"

"What makes you say that?" she asked almost belligerently, folding the picture under her fingers. Jacen was treading on dangerous territory here, but he was probably the only one who would ever get away with it. Jaina rarely let anyone close enough to get under her skin, but luckily for her, she'd been born with a twin – one didn't mind crossing a few boundaries when he thought she needed it. She would do the same for him if the opportunity arose.

"I can't think of anything else that would have you asleep clutching a picture of him." He reached out and took the picture from her, sliding it from her tight grip. Studying it closely, he noted Zekk and Jaina's happy grins and the way their arms settled around each other. "I don't think I've seen you that happy since."

"The war, Jacen," she reminded him. Not that he needed that. That had seemed to drain everything worth saving out of the galaxy, and for a while it had seemed that the only parts left should just be damned. More than anything, the war had forced them to grow up, leaving behind their childhood and its happier times. Things were different now, though, better. There was no reason that Jacen could see why his sister wouldn't be happy, or at least out looking for that happiness.

"Has been over for seven years. Why didn't you marry Jag?" he threw the question in mostly because he had always wondered, but also because it was probably time Jaina confronted the answer herself. More so because of the way she had reacted to Zekk.

The sudden change of track surprised her, but didn't confuse her as much as she tried to convince him that it did. "Huh?"

Jacen ploughed on, curious. "You were together for a long time. You must have discussed it at some point." Jacen knew they had, in fact he knew that Jag had proposed to Jaina two and half years ago. Jaina was unaware that her brother knew, and Jacen chose not to enlighten her.

"It seemed better not to," she gave up all pretence of not knowing what Jacen was talking about.

"Why not? I know you Jaina. I know you want to get married. I know you want children. You may have convinced the galaxy otherwise, but I know you. Why didn't you marry Jag?"

"It was wrong." The glint in her eyes and the steel in her voice convinced him not to press further. Jaina made up her own mind, and always had.

In the period of silence that followed, Jacen took the opportunity to study his sister, as he hadn't in years. She looked older and more tired than he thought she should, and he wished he could help her, but it was up to her figure out the best course of action.

Eventually, she took the picture back and looked at it hard. Jacen wondered if she was seeing things he couldn't, but shrugged it off. Memories always were the hardest thing to avoid. He was surprised though when she spoke.

"Look at us in this photograph," she whispered. "So beautifully naïve…I want it back."

Jacen didn't comment on that, far too stunned to form anything into words, he was having trouble believing that she would admit it to herself. Obviously she had changed more that he'd given her credit for. Yet, he doubted she was completely aware of what she was saying out loud.

Letting lose a yawn, Jaina leaned back against Jacen's shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her pulling her close, holding her for a minute. Then he kissed her on the temple.

"Perhaps we should talk about it in the morning." He'd done enough damage for the night, given her enough to think about. Maybe now she'd do something about it all.

She nodded and left him with his own thoughts, shutting the door to her room softly behind her. The door however could not quite contain her disquiet, and Jacen noticed she'd taken the picture with her.

-x-x-x-

Well, it wasn't exactly a beach; more the rocky bank of an estuary that Jaina picked her way through to sit beside Zekk. He had noticed her coming, but hadn't moved from his spot. The wind whipped coolly past them, and the water fluttered, splashing in different directions. Seabirds called, and somewhere further along, two children poked in the rocks, looking for crabs.

Jaina sat on an almost smooth rock beside him. For a long time, neither of them spoke, in that time the two children became little more than odd shapes in the distance. Looking at them made Jaina sad. Once upon a time that had been her. Oh, she'd left the living things to Jacen, far more interested in mechanical things, but she remembered the need to explore and discover, what it was like to spend hours hunting for exactly what you wanted, not worrying about anything else.

Zekk spoke first, and it was such a mirror of Jaina's thoughts that she almost had to wonder if she'd been projecting.

"Remember them?" he asked, tilting his head a little, pointing with his chin. He didn't need to ask clarify who, she knew.

Jaina closed her eyes briefly, looking back to their days on Coruscant, escaping for hours into the underworld, where no one had cared that she was Jaina Solo. The Jedi didn't matter, the government didn't matter, it was just her, Zekk, and a planet full of junk to search through for the perfect part.

"Only too well."

"Who do you think they'll grow up to be?"

The grief that struck Jaina was out of proportion with what it should have been. Who do you think they'll grow up to be? Alone. That wasn't fair, because people didn't always grow up to be alone. Her parents didn't, her aunt, her uncle, but sometimes they seemed like the lucky few. She shoved it all aside.

Last night, Jacen had been right: she did want things like a husband, a family, her own children. Jag had offered her that, but she had turned him down, saying why ruin what they had? In the end, it had anyway, slowly eating its way through their relationship until the point where it might take years before they could consider even calling each other friend again.

She had thought she had dealt with leaving Jag, with being alone. All it took to unseat that notion was a chance meeting with her childhood friend and first crush and a couple of questions from her overly observant twin brother.

"I don't know," was her answer to Zekk, but it meant more than that, because Jaina really didn't know. Mostly because she wasn't sure who she'd grown up to be, or if she'd grown up at all. She wanted to go back in time to be fifteen years old, studying at the academy, spending most, if not all, of her spare time with her oldest and dearest friend. Anything else was too complex.

"Are you all right, Jaina?"

"Not really," she answered, and that was the most truthful answer she'd given anyone in a long time.

"Yeah," was all he said, but she thought he might know exactly what she had meant.

-x-x-x

The next time, she found him sitting in a café. He didn't know if she'd been looking for him specifically, or if she'd just wandered in off the street. Either was a possibility. He'd come here in response to the need to be alone, without actually being alone. Yet the minute she walked through the door, he knew that he didn't really want that at all.

"Do you mind if I join you?" she asked softly.

"Please," he said softly. "Go right ahead." Jaina settled across from him, sliding into the booth as if she meant to be there all along.

"They serve lemonade here," she told him.

The quiet words held a question, and for the first time in years Zekk thought he might just be up to answering that question. For the first time, he thought that answer he might receive in return would be the one he was looking for.

"I know."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

**Notes: **Yes, I know I have no concept of sentence structure, but **please review**! Your honest opinions are always appreciated.


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